The brouhaha caused by Hastie after he and others made a fuss over a One Nation cartoon – which had been in the public domain for many weeks – had an odour of confection about it.

Hastie called both Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce lying cowards and demanded an apology from them. He also wanted One Nation to taken down a cartoon in which he (as well as others in the Liberal Party) was called a traitor (several times).

REVEALED

[If you haven’t watched the One Nation political cartoons you really should, they are good and at times priceless. Search “One Nation cartoons” online and all shall be revealed.]

It was plain to everyone except Hastie, it seems, that the cartoon was making fun of him and the positions he had taken publicly against Labor’s hate speech legislation.

At first, he told the world why he was against Labor’s Bill: “This Bill is an attack on our basic democratic freedoms, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of religion.”

Then, when the time came to vote, like Albanese on so many occasions, he changed his “position” and voted with Labor.

He was then, together with other Liberals who voted with Labor, called a traitor – a traitor to their political cause.

The One Nation cartoon played on that same theme, nothing more and nothing less. There was not even a hint or an insinuation that he was nothing more than a traitor to his word.

To most sensible people it was a storm in a teacup. Hastie had shown that he was prepared to change his mind and in that way, betray those who were and are stridently against curbing free speech.

As his anger and hurt became more apparent he demurred at pursuing Hanson in the courts, he claimed he couldn’t afford a fight with Hanson and billionaire Gina Rinehart.

Rinehart is known to be a One Nation supporter. Perhaps Hastie didn’t know she also supports his own Party, the Liberal Party.

As dawn came to Canberra with the bugler sounding reveille and the bagpipes on the ramparts in the distance playing Hey Johhny Cope, the indomitable and often confected “Digger” spirit was rising in the mists over Lake Burley Griffin, the political class were girding their loins.

Any chance to have a shot at One Nation and at the same time express outrage that a veteran should have aspersions cast about his character was explored by every politician who could get in front of a camera and a mike.

Senator Jacqui Lambie of the Jacqui Lambie Network, herself an ex-soldier and apparently an accomplished military truck driver as well as a corporal in the Military Police had to have her say and she did in spades.

Lambie has a fine turn of phrase when she wants, no doubt polished during her ten years of military service. She must have been a barrack room lawyer of prodigious competence judging how she hardly paused for breath as her invective against Pauline Hanson became almost hysterical.

“Anybody that hides behind a cartoon and goes after a veteran and calls them a traitor, a paranoid traitor and a washed-up gutless maggot, I have to say you’re a bloody maggot yourself and you’re a coward.” She also told Hanson “to stay away from her veterans”.

Lambie turned on the invective for every TV station, literally foaming at the mouth as she repeated her expletives. All very entertaining coming from a senator in the Australian Parliament, who plays albeit a small part, in the governance of this country.

It may take some time, but one day Australia will forgive Tasmania for sending her to Canberra.

Why has Hastie, the Member for Canning in WA, with the experience of more than a decade in parliament, the son of a clergyman, a devout Christian, a celebrated warrior, happily married with several young children, suddenly come out swinging against Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party?

OFFENCE

Why has he suddenly taken offence regarding the content of a cartoon that makes fun of him, and which has been available online for weeks, maybe months?

The answer is almost certainly that he is concerned about his political survival. Hastie is fighting Hanson and One Nation not because of the cartoon, but because they One Nation just had a resounding win in a State by-election in the seat of Secret Harbour, which is slap bang adjacent to his seat of Canning.

Not only did One Nation have a win, they wiped the floor with Labor and the Liberals. After preferences the One Nation candidate received 57.2 per cent of the vote.

Labor had held Secret Harbour for years and was considered “safe” with an 11.5 per cent margin.

In 2022, when Labor destroyed the Liberal Party in WA – and nationally – Hastie survived a swing against him of 7.8 per cent. He won the seat reasonably comfortably, with 53.9 per cent after preferences.

But Hastie hadn’t counted on One Nation and their ambitions for his seat of Canning, and he hadn’t expected rumour and innuendo on social media in his electorate, concerning what many believe was Hastie’s part in shameful treatment of local WA hero, Ben Roberts-Smith VC.

[Andrew Hastie began his military career in 2001 and was a captain, a commissioned officer, in the SAS Regiment. He resigned his commission in 2015 to successfully stand for the Liberal Party.]

Roberts-Smith was a non-commissioned officer, a Corporal in the same Regiment. He joined the army in 1996 and resigned in 2013 for a corporate career with Channel 7.

The VC recipient was subjected to a very public arrest while on an airliner with his daughters. He was removed from the plane in handcuffs, taken to the police station and subsequently charged with the murder of Afghans during his active service in Afghanistan.